{"id":30378,"date":"2015-06-01T10:03:49","date_gmt":"2015-06-01T14:03:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=30378"},"modified":"2015-06-01T10:03:49","modified_gmt":"2015-06-01T14:03:49","slug":"prophets-of-the-technological-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2015\/06\/prophets-of-the-technological-future.html","title":{"rendered":"Prophets of the Technological Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>I had been meaning to blog about the movie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00XI059W8\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00XI059W8&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=2GOZEXK6EQHKRVOC\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ex Machina<\/a> for a while now. It\u00a0makes explicit the potential for the creation of artificial intelligence to be thought of in terms of godlikeness. It is interesting that, whenever we imagine creation of sentient beings taking place, whether in Genesis or sci-fi, they never fail to rebel against their creator(s). Does this reflect the impact of Genesis? Or does all this human storytelling, Genesis included, reflect our experience with children, made in our image, who inevitably have to rise up against the authority of parents in order to carve out their own identity? How\u00a0do stories about AI help us to get a different perspective on Genesis, and vice versa?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/paleojudaica.blogspot.com\/2015_05_24_archive.html#5230168023427629011\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Jim Davila<\/a> pointed out <a href=\"http:\/\/flavorwire.com\/519471\/will-our-robot-overlords-be-freer-than-us-a-philosophical-investigation\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">an article about whether human nature has more to do with inner conflict than thought<\/a>, and the implications of this for artificial intelligence. <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.nature.com\/aviewfromthebridge\/2015\/05\/27\/lust-and-the-turing-test\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Nature<\/em><\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.commonwealmagazine.org\/robomance\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Commonweal<\/em><\/a>\u00a0also had pieces about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B00VWQ3LQG\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=B00VWQ3LQG&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;linkId=NMPXIJEF5WA2BP2R\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Ex Machina<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: none !important;margin: 0px !important\" src=\"https:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=jamefmcgrshom-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00VWQ3LQG\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\">. <a href=\"http:\/\/gypsyscholarship.blogspot.com\/2015\/05\/a-turing-tested-audience.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Horace Jefferey Hodges suggests<\/a> that the movie was Turing testing\u00a0<em>us<\/em> the viewers, and that in most cases we failed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencealert.com\/wealthy-humans-could-live-forever-as-cyborgs-within-200-years-expert-predicts\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Yuval Noah Harari predicts that we will be God-like cyborgs within 200 years<\/a>.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/marginalia.lareviewofbooks.org\/the-vibrant-religious-life-of-silicon-valley-and-why-its-killing-the-economy-by-samuel-loncar\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Marginalia Review of Books<\/em> looked at Silicon Valley\u2019s outlook in\u00a0religious terms<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/ray-kurzweil-law-of-accelerating-returns-2015-5\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>Business Insider<\/em> explored Ray Kurzweil\u2019s law of accelerating returns<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/nick_bostrom_what_happens_when_our_computers_get_smarter_than_we_are\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Nick Bostrom gave a TED Talk<\/a> about what happens when our computers become smarter than we are. And there was also an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmodo.in\/news\/Why-Im-Running-for-President-As-the-Transhumanist-Candidate\/articleshow\/47192217.cms?utm_source=GIZ&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=GIZMODO\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">article\u00a0by a transhumanist candidate for president<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, a cartoon courtesy of <a href=\"http:\/\/peopleinwhitecoats.blogspot.com\/2015\/05\/how-sharper-than-serpents-tooth-is.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">People in White Coats<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-30406\" src=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/05\/AI-1a-502x1024.jpg\" alt=\"AI-1a\" width=\"367\" height=\"749\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30407\" src=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/05\/AI-1b-372x1024.jpg\" alt=\"AI-1b\" width=\"372\" height=\"1024\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-30408\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/05\/AI-2a-476x1024.jpg\" alt=\"AI-2a\" width=\"365\" height=\"785\"><br>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-30405\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/exploringourmatrix\/files\/2015\/05\/AI-2b-391x1024.jpg\" alt=\"AI-2b\" width=\"391\" height=\"1024\"><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had been meaning to blog about the movie Ex Machina for a while now. It\u00a0makes explicit the potential for the creation of artificial intelligence to be thought of in terms of godlikeness. It is interesting that, whenever we imagine creation of sentient beings taking place, whether in Genesis or sci-fi, they never fail to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":30406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,62,96],"tags":[443,810,2269,2277,3224,3690,3840,4027,9642,9646,12320,12831],"class_list":["post-30378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-eschatology-theology","category-movies","category-technology","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-creation","tag-creator","tag-ex-machina","tag-future","tag-genesis-bible","tag-godlike","tag-prophecy","tag-prophets","tag-technology","tag-transhumanism"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Prophets of the Technological Future<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I had been meaning to blog about the movie Ex Machina for a while now. 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